Twin Tailed Survival
by Digolgrin
Summary: Shot down in pursuit of his old nemesis, a young two-tailed fox kit must discover his independence as he fights to survive in the depths of the jungle surrounding the Mystic Ruins.


**Author's Note: Okay, here's the basic gist behind this little idea-what if it took Tails a couple **_**days**_ **to find the entrance to Sand Hill after the Tornado was shot down?** **Jungles are HUGE, so Tails just finding it all of a sudden would be a little unrealistic.**

Of course, Tails would need to eat and drink in order to survive past  
three days-hence why I've called this a sort-of survival story. A lot of inspiration, therefore, was taken from books like Hatchet, games like Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater/Subsistence, and a little bit of improvisation of my own. Oh, and some aspects were taken from a conversation I had with Saphroneth, a multi-fandom author-rather smart, that fellow. Okay, without further ado, let's get straight into it!

**Chapter 1 (perhaps?)  
Air Raid Tails**

**June 18th, 2003  
Near Mystic Ruins Train Station, planet Mobius  
3:43 PM Mystic Ruins time**

Two blurs flew through time and space, chasing each other like a game of cat and mouse; one red, the other cobalt blue. They'd been there for quite some time-eleven minutes, to be exact-though observers wouldn't know that from how fast they were moving, or how they collided with each other on occasion, causing one to fly backwards and into one of many assorted objects. Their battle bore a great prize-two of the most valuable gems on the planet, the Chaos Emeralds, the key to one of Dr. Ivo Robotnik's latest world domination schemes. The blue one had them, but the red one sought to take them away under the misguided belief that the former was hunting for scattered parts of the planet's largest Emerald, the Master Emerald.

"Those Emeralds are _mine, _you hear me Sonic?! I don't want to hurt you any more than I have to, so give them back!" Knuckles the Echidna, Guardian of the Master Emerald, swung at the blue blur with what would have been a vicious right hand... had the intended victim not bounced away like a rabbit.

"Hey, we need these more than you do, Knucklehead! You never complained about them before, so why do you need 'em now?!" Sonic the Hedgehog flipped backwards as he approached a cliff face at his signature high speed, using his motion energy to propel himself off it like a guided missile targeted for the Echidna.

Knuckles turned around to spot the approaching hedgehog missile, giving him little time to prepare a counter. "Do you think Angel Island looks better in the ocean or something?!" The only thing he got in response was a grunt-well, both of them gave off grunts as they prepared to attack, this could have been the final, decisive blow for both parties involved-as he launched a straight punch with his left hand aimed right for his assailant's skull.

Both attacks had been relatively well-timed. While Sonic _did _make contact with Knuckles' body and knocked him down, the Guardian managed to exert enough force on Sonic to lessen the impact and send him flying backwards. The Blue Blur landed with a thud some feet/meters away from where the two of them had been just a few seconds earlier.

"Sonic!" A certain two-tailed fox kit ran towards his best friend's side. He was still okay, but his senses had been temporarily kicked out of him. "Are you okay?" he asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine, Tails, just give me a second..." He shook his head multiple times to regain his bearings as he sat back up. "Good thing the Chaos Emeralds are still intact..." Suddenly, it came to him-something that strong would have easily knocked the Emeralds out of wherever he was hiding them. "Wait a minute, the Emeralds!" he cried. "Where'd the Chaos Emeralds go?" Sonic looked around frantically for a couple seconds before his eyes settled on the only two Chaos Emeralds they had left-one as blue as Sonic's quills, the other a very bright green. Apparently, they'd been knocked back farther than he had! "Okay, they're still here... Thank Aurora."

Relieved for the moment, Miles 'Tails' Prower's attention quickly turned to Knuckles, who was just getting back onto his feet. "Well, if you wanna grab 'em, you might wanna make it quick-looks like Knuckles just got his second wind!"

However, Knux's mind wasn't on the downed Sonic nor what he was supposed to have. It was the sheer mention of Chaos Emeralds that got him thinking. "_Chaos_ Emeralds? He didn't say anything about _Chaos _Emeralds..."

Sonic's head turned back towards his rival. "_He_?" he questioned.

The unmistakable sound of Dr. Robotnik's evil laughter-and three jet engines-seemed to answer that question. He'd been lurking behind a piece of scenery, watching the fight from a small drone camera hovering at least fifty feet above the combatants' heads. Unfortunately for him, Knuckles had inadvertently disabled it roughly two minutes before the fight ended, when he attempted to throw a rock at an airborne Sonic and missed, forcing him to expose himself earlier than he had anticipated. However, he'd picked the perfect time to make his presence known; from what he could tell, the foolish Echidna had succeeded in doing part of his dirty work for him, just as he planned.

Now, if Sonic hadn't been momentarily dazed, he would have snatched the Emeralds back up before Ro-butt-nik could say anything, but being punched in the cranium did more harm to his reaction time than it did good, though temporary. "Eggman!" he growled. Within a second of seeing him swoop in like a vulture to the carcass of a dead animal, he was building up steam for his signature Spin Dash, fully intent on avenging past mistakes that had caused them to lose two Emeralds the day before.

However, by the time he let loose, the madman had already positioned his Egg-O-Matic over the Emeralds and was beginning the process of retrieving them. A green tractor beam was fired from the underside of the craft, lifting them off the ground and into his hands just before the Blue Blur sped underneath it. He could practically see the Emeralds disappear as he flew by, rendering his efforts in vain. Not wanting to make an already bad situation even worse, he stopped himself before flying into the nearby pond, but the damage was already done. He could only watch as his arch-enemy took their hard-earned Chaos Emeralds from right underneath their noses.

"Muhahahaha! Just like taking candy from a baby!" Robotnik declared at the top of his lungs, hoisting his prizes up high. It was the first time in _years _things were starting to go his way, and he liked it. The only times he'd been thwarted so far were relatively minor, and in one case actually brought him an Emerald. If ever there was a time Lady Luck chose to smile on a villain, this would probably be it.

Rad Red spent those few seconds in relative disbelief-not every day someone fools him-but shortly after Robotnik made his boastful declaration, he just had to step forward to voice his discontent. "You told me these two stole pieces of the Master Emerald! Those were _Chaos _Emeralds they were carrying!"

More laughter from the Doctor. "You're far too easy to fool, Knucklehead! If I knew that little piece of rubbish would practically give me two Chaos Emeralds, I would have told you long ago!"

Knuckles growled in response. This wasn't the first time he'd been tricked, and it definitely wouldn't be the last. When was he ever going to learn his lesson?

Sonic's first response was to dart around to the side facing the fat man. Stealing the Chaos Emeralds back was far too risky-there was always the possibility he'd ascend out of reach before he was even so much as able to scratch the Egg-O-Matic's paint job, not to mention the possibility of self-defense mechanisms. There was also one other pressing matter... The Knuckles problem.

He skidded to a stop a couple feet/meters from Knuckles' left. "Hold it _right there, _fatty! There's no way you're gonna get away with this!" he shouted at Robotnik. He was outnumbered, no question about it. Sure, Buttnik had technology and firepower to aid him, but was it going to be enough to stop three Mobians who knew how to work together? Probably not. Not wanting to waste any time, he quickly turned to Knuckles in an effort to get some form of an explanation out of him. "Knuckles, don't tell me Buttnik tricked you _again_!"

"Yeah!" Tails piped up. "Don't you ever realize when you've been tricked?"

"_**ME?!**_" Knuckles replied, going defensive. "What about _**you?**_"

Now it was Sonic's turn to capitalize. He was nowhere near as gullible as Knuckles was, and when Chaos Emeralds were at stake, he had to be on the top of his game. "Way to go, _Knucklehead!_" he retorted-and for a moment, it looked like they were about to come to blows once more.

The sound of even _more _laughter from the Doctor brought the three back to their senses. "Now, the tables have turned once again! I have four Chaos Emeralds now... And I know just what to do with them!" He got to his feet as if he were about to make a speech. "Chaos!" he beckoned. "Come forth and reclaim your birthright!"

The all-too-familiar sight of a bright blue puddle of water appearing to rise from the soil caught Team Sonic's eyes once again. This time, however, the drop was much larger-and what it coalesced into was a much more threatening beast than the first time it had taken an Emerald for itself, and indeed than when Sonic first saw the 'big drip.' Its left arm had gained some bones, in which the Emerald they lost outside Casinopolis was stored, and its head had moved farther down than when the Blue Blur had last seen it, taking on a shape similar to that of a hammerhead shark.

This wasn't the first time Knuckles had seen this creature, however. They'd fought in Station Square's hotel while the others were out cold, resulting in the latter's defeat... which was par for the course when it came down to his combat record against Sonic and his friends. It was there that Ivo fed him the misinformation that had caused this whole mess in the first place. "Hey, it's that Chaos thing again!" the Guardian exclaimed.

This got surprised looks from Sonic and Tails. "You've seen him before?" Tails asked.

Knux nodded, but didn't expand on the story. There was nothing they could do now but watch.

You see, Dr. Robotnik didn't seek the Emeralds to fuel some deadly superweapon. Every time Chaos absorbed a Chaos Emerald, his power would grow, changing his form and abilities as a result. Without any Chaos Emeralds, he was nigh-powerless except for immunity to weapons-a human SWAT team back in Station Square found that out the hard way. His plan, then, was simple-find all seven Chaos Emeralds and then feed them to Chaos, who would then in return wipe out Station Square, allowing Ivo to lay the foundations for his future Empire.

And now Chaos was about to receive two more of them. "Here!" Ivo commanded as he threw the blue and green Chaos Emeralds into Chaos' body. "Eat up!"

As the Emeralds sunk into Chaos, they triggered a massive reaction that caused widespread mutations throughout his body. The sheer amount of energy was enough to emit a bright light-but 'Eggman', fortunately equipped with sunglasses, was able to see the entire transformation, despite being relatively short.

For starters, his legs fused together, creating something resembling a fishtail structure. What appeared to be fins then sprouted near it, possibly helping to provide stability when swimming. Bone structures then grew in his midsection and ran down the tail, which appeared to encase its newly absorbed Emeralds in armor. A sharkfin grew near its neck, menacing in appearance, though providing little notable effect that the author can recall for stability other than to look cool. Its hands and head were relatively unchanged, save for the fact that the hands were minus one 'finger'.

When all was said and done, a much more shark-like version of Chaos appeared in front of Sonic and friends, a formidable reminder of what they were up against. This form was more suited for aquatic movement-right now, it just appeared to hover in midair. Needless to say, reactions were... shocked. "Ugh! He just transformed again!" Tails exclaimed.

"Aw, great." Sonic replied. "This just isn't our day."

Knuckles, still angry at himself for falling for another one of Robotnik's tricks, punched the storage shed next to him. Being made of wood, it collapsed relatively easily-but it didn't matter. They could rebuild it in due time.

These sort of antics and responses amused Robotnik to no end. Nevertheless, his evil laughter didn't last much longer than his previous boasts-he still had business to attend to, things like commanding what was now known as Chaos 4 to grind Sonic and his pals to dust. "Aha ha ha ha! Now, Chaos; your time has come to take revenge on that blue hedgehog and his friends! Attack!"

Chaos leapt into the water-its form's dominant area-and waited for them to leap down there as well. Not wanting to miss out on fighting that 'big drip' again, Sonic went after it almost immediately, leaving Tails and Knuckles to watch him take it to the cleaners... Figuratively speaking.

-

Chaos 4's attack pattern was simple, really-first it'd whip its tail around, creating a shockwave effect that could knock Sonic back quite a ways. Then it'd charge directly into one of the large lilypads littering the battlefield, which would cause him to fall into the water if he were standing on top of the affected pad. If he was far away, it would emerge from the water and perform a backflip, creating hazardous explosions of water that would knock him _into _the water if he wasn't careful. It would also sometimes devolve into four little balls of water that just bounced along looking for their target, but this usually resulted in tactical evasion on Sonic's part. Eventually it would surface to take a breather, much like a dolphin, revealing its weak point-the brain, which had been that way ever since it lacked any Chaos Emeralds. All Sonic needed to do then was hurl himself-usually off the rocks, but he would sometimes use his newfound homing attack just to show off-at it, which broke it down to component parts. They'd then recoalesce into one, allowing Chaos to continue the fight and starting the cycle all over again.

While the two of them were going at it, Robotnik was preparing to make his exit. Regardless of who would win, he still needed to find the other Emeralds-Chaos could easily restore himself to form after being defeated, he just needed time to get back into shape for further usage-and the closest, he found, were out of the country. He was able to reach all the Emeralds so far with just his Egg-O-Matic, but his base of operations for this plan had to be mobile to avoid being around when Chaos 7-or whatever he'd be called once he had all seven Emeralds (*cough* Perfect Chaos)-attacked Station Square. It also had to fly itself; if he had to be away to get the Emeralds, he needed it to find him instead of the other way around. He flipped on his pod's beacon as soon as he saw the direction the fight was taking-more in favor of Sonic than Chaos-and began to wait.

It had been about seven minutes since the fight had started, and from what the Blue Blur could tell from Chaos' movements, it was close to being on its last legs. That meant it had to be attacking much more strongly and more frequently in an effort to keep him at a distance. All he had to do now was keep out of its way- chances were it would exhaust itself and leave the brain wide open.

And there it was. One of Chaos' attempts to sink the lilypad he was on had caused it to shudder as if he'd hit a brick wall-a sign that it needed to take a breather. On instinct, it broke the water's surface, idly floating there like a dead fish as it tried to gather some more stamina. This was Sonic's best chance to end the battle quickly-there was no telling what he'd miss if he let it drag on. "Alright, you overgrown shark," he said, "it's time to meet your maker!" Immediately thereafter, he jumped into the air and curled into a ball, launching himself at the beast with a large amount of forward force.

Suddenly, his target exploded. And I'm not talking like an attempt to launch another set of homing water globes at him, I mean a literal _explosion, _like the kind you'd expect a bomb or grenade to make. Instead of slamming into that squishy brain, which would have made Chaos 4 fall apart for the final time, he found himself flying through high explosive heaven-including the gas created by the TNT explosion-before landing on a lilypad that had just resurfaced. Chaos was nowhere to be seen.

Curious, he started looking around to determine the source of the explosion. His eyes eventually settled on Tails, who was just standing there with a cute 'wasn't me!' look on his face. "What?" the fox asked. "I was just disposing of an old friend of mine."

"Showstealer." Sonic replied.

They didn't have much time to themselves after the hedgehog got himself out of the pond and back onto the dry land above. The roar of large-even Tails couldn't guess what they were at first, but he was leaning towards ion-engines coming from the south signified the approach of something... Something BIG. Even the human archeologists that had stopped what they were doing to watch both battles started quivering in their boots when they first heard them coming. Whatever it was, it wasn't good.

And then they saw it. A bright red, black and yellow flying battleship crested the horizon at top speed, headed straight for Robotnik's position. The noise of all seven of its engines at full power was enough to cause small tremors in the earth as it approached, but its altitude was high enough to help lessen the effects on everyone's hearing. Eventually, its oddly pointed nose angled upward to bleed some of its speed, and thrusters at the bottom of the warship-by now definitely confirmed to be ion-kicked in to put the ship into a hover mode. The main engines began to idle so as to not nudge it forward, making it much quieter than it had been before. All that could be heard was a distant whine from the thrusters-and Dr. Robotnik's laughter-as everything below its menacing hulk sat in shadow.

"Behold, my floating masterpiece: the _**Egg Carrier!**_" the good doctor boasted. "It's by far my most powerful creation-only the Death Egg could have come close to this sort of power!"

Tails was awestruck. He'd heard Robotnik was working on another one of these kinds of battleships, but never had he seen one that was powered by ion engines; or so heavily armed. He counted at least fifteen missile batteries on the underside alone. _Why would he need so many weapons? _he wondered. _If Chaos is gonna do all the work, what's the point of arming his ship?_

"But, of course, even this beauty of a ship is no match for Chaos in the slightest. This is only the flagship of my newborn empire!" He then tapped a button on his remote command menu for the Egg Carrier, telling its onboard tractor beam to beam him back up. "Farewell... Until we meet again, my friends! Ahahahaha!" A green beam similar in constitution and strength to the one mounted on the bottom of the Egg-O-Matic soon appeared from the bottom of the ship, scooping Ivo up from the ground and pulling him into the vessel's hull.

Now, there was no way Sonic was going to let this madman retreat into the safety of his big freakin' battleship. A few seconds after the fat man's ship left the ground, he leapt up and propelled himself at the tractor beam in an attempt to follow the Doctor into the vessel, only to discover to his dismay that it only brought up whatever it locked onto, and wouldn't lift anything else. Like before, this meant he could only watch as the Egg Carrier switched to flight mode and began to fly off into the distance at a rapidly increasing speed.

"Aw, shoot! He's getting away!" he grunted.

"Like heck he's _not!_" Tails exclaimed.

Sonic turned to his friend, noticing a rather cross look about his face. Why was he so defiant all of a sudden? "Tails?" he asked.

"You don't have to run on water to get to him. If we head to my workshop and take the Tornado, we should be able to catch up to him in no time at all!" Tails explained. The kit was a skilled pilot-there was no denying that. Flying was his passion, second only to invention. If there was anywhere Sonic needed to go that was across water, Tails could easily take him there.

Sonic gave his trademark smirk in response. "Yeah! Good thinking, Tails!" he replied. He didn't need feet-they had a plane of their own, and it was well capable of chasing that big bulky battleship down.

However, Knuckles had prior engagements. He still needed to find the rest of the pieces of the Master Emerald-since they turned out not to have any, there was no sense in hanging around them any longer if he wanted Angel Island to return to the sky again. "You guys get after him!" the Echidna commanded. "I've got some unfinished business down here-the Master Emerald isn't just gonna fix itself."

Of course, Sonic was willing to let him go. If there were things he had to do himself, then they had to be done himself-no exceptions. "No problem Knuckles! We'll take care of 'im, don't you worry!" With that, Knuckles darted off in the direction of what he guessed to be Red Mountain.

"C'mon, what are we waiting for?" Tails shouted. "Let's get moving!"

**BGM: Believe in Myself  
Karen Brake  
Sonic Adventure** **OST**

Cut to the interior of Tails' workshop. The young kit strides towards a map of Mobius on a desk next to the hangar doors, on which the general location of his workshop is circled in red, and begins to get a rough idea of the Egg Carrier's course with the help of a protractor and ruler as the first verse begins. (Anything that appears in **bold **here will appear on the viewer's figurative screen. I like to write literally, so I treat each fic kinda like a movie. Don't mind the weird placement of the **bold **stuff for that reason.)

**Digolgrin Presents**

_When all alone in my chair, I just go about wishing  
I wanna be strong, I really wanna be trusted  
_**  
A** _**Sonic the Hedgehog **_**Fanfiction**

He quickly decides on a bearing and course to follow, though in his rush he has to choose a general direction and just fly with it in mind. The camera now cuts to him strapping on a parachute, on the front of which is clipped a small green survival kit. Despite being given two rotatable tails for a reason he can't really remember, his species is mainly terrestrial and doesn't have any ingrained flight instincts, so wearing one just in case he forgets about his ability is a must. As he clips his harness's cheststrap closed with one hand, he pulls the ripcord with another to make sure it isn't sticking or broken.

_When all alone in my bed, I just go about yearning  
I wanna be cool, I also wanna be like him_

**Inspired by the one-shot **_**Fox's Family**_** by Saphroneth**

Finally, the camera lays eyes on the Tornado as Tails climbs into it. A relic of the Great War of 1940's infamy, which also happened to give birth to GUN, Tails found it shortly after meeting Sonic, restoring it to flyable condition and attaching two small jet engines to the fuselage. Why? You'll see shortly. "Okay, old girl," he whispers as he settles into the cockpit, still reminiscent of its War-era glory, and straps himself in, "time to take you for a spin."

_But that's not something I can do so easily_

He hits some switches and adjusts some knobs on the dashboard just before the camera cuts away to the nose of the aircraft, focusing on the propellor. The air-cooled, 450 horsepower Drummond & Griffith Twin Star engine sputters to life just in time for the chorus to start, spitting out exhaust fumes as it does so.

_This is not simply my way, my style  
Gotta get a hold of my life!_

**Twin Tailed Survival**

The camera then cuts to a view from behind the old warbird as the hangar doors slide open, an awestruck Sonic standing next to the extended runway. The massive palm trees that once dominated the north side of the workshop had moved off to the side by way of concealed hydraulics to make room for it as it came out of the ground. The stretch of dirt had to evenly split in two to permit this modification, again thanks to hydraulics. While the Tornado would have been perfectly capable of taking off from a dirt runway, Tails' workshop was built on quite literally the longest cliff he could find-at about half a football field before the drop-off if one were to run from end to end and manage to _not _fall off the edge, it would have given the Tornado just enough time to reach its optimal take-off speed but not enough time to slow down after landing. This concrete runway's job, then, was to help provide a means for it to slow down-wires were placed at about the average point simulations indicated its wheels would touch ground, which an added tailhook could grab onto to help slow the craft to a managable speed, similar to how aircraft carriers recover their aircraft. Unnecessary explanation aside, the Tornado rolls out onto the runway, coming to a stop right next to Sonic.

_I wanna fly high  
So I can reach the highest of all the heavens_

"_Sonic! _Hop in!" Tails cries as he checks his control surfaces. The Blue Blur recovers from the shock of seeing the elaborate mechanisms that caused the runway to appear in the first place and quickly hops onto the Tornado's tail.

_Somebody will be  
Waiting for me so I have gotta fly higher_

He looks back towards Sonic. "Okay! You ready, Sonic?" the kit asks. Sonic, of course, simply nods in response as his friend turned his attention back to the cockpit. "Alright! Egg Carrier, here we come!" Tails exclaims. Shortly afterwards, he pushes the Tornado's throttle 'through the gate' and turns off the parking brake.

_Gotta keep goin'!  
Everything is a brand-new challenge for me_

The two jet engines ignite in concert with their radial counterpart switching on its war emergency power, propelling the aircraft down the runway faster than with the radial engine alone. The reason for this was to decrease the time it took to reach its maximum takeoff speed-without them, the aircraft would actually _lose_ some altitude on takeoff. While it would still manage to get enough speed to continue flying and not crash into the rocks below, it was still annoying enough to cause Tails to fit the jet engines, which virtually eliminated that problem altogether.

_I will believe in myself  
This is the only start for me!_

Our little camera then moves to a position near the end of the runway and stays there, its unending gaze watching the Tornado roar down the runway and ascend into the clouds as soon as its wheels leave ground. It soon becomes little more than a red dot as it begins its pursuit of the Egg Carrier.

Little does that dot know that this would be its final scramble...

**End of Chapter 1**


End file.
